weight/strength training question

I got the book The New Rules of Lifting For Women as a Christmas present, and I'm already seeing improvement just a few workouts in. You might want to flip through the book at a bookstore or check out a preview online to see if it sounds like something you would like to do.

simplyshredded.com has a free woman's training guide for lifting...

http://www.simplyshredded.com/the-ultimate-female-training-guide.html

Lots of options:

Monday --Back, Chest, Shoulders, Core
Tuesday--Biceps, Triceps, Legs
Repeat on Thursday and Friday

Or

Monday--Chest, Triceps, Shoulders, Core
Tuesday--Back, Biceps, Legs
Repeat Thursday Friday

In addition you should try to do some cardio each day. I shoot for 30 minutes of weight training and 30 minutes of cardio.

Good luck

simplyshredded.com has a free woman's training guide for lifting...

http://www.simplyshredded.com/the-ultimate-female-training-guide.html

+1 for simply shredded, although im not a woman my girlfriend loves there training programs.

To get going I would just have a bit of a play with the machines. A rule of thumb is that 3 sets of 8 repetitions (reps) is good for building muscle mass, 5 sets of 5 (of a heavier weight) is good for strength training. In terms of good "value", choosing a machine that works large muscles and/or muscle groups is good. If 8 reps is feeling easy, then kick the weight up to the next level. A nice balance between pushing and pulling is also a good idea.

Machines that I personally like are - shoulder press, cable row, pec deck (fly), chest press, leg press and lat pulldown. If you do a circuit of those you should be hitting quite a lot of different muscles, and it wont take too long. Bicep curls and triceps extensions I prefer to do with dumbbells, but if you have the machines for those they are quite good "finishers".

As a beginner you won't "overtrain" or anything like that if you do that circuit each time you are in the gym. Of course if you are hurting (in your joints, not just sore muscles) then stop straight away. You are after the pain of fatigue not the pain of injury :-).

Good luck! If you persevere you will see your "numbers" go up quite quickly.

Stronglifts 5x5

Easy to find the information...there's even a free app to track your progress.

I'm picking up a weight set this weekend that I found on craigslist so I can start!

Starting Strength.


/thread

:-) that's not a machine program though.

True. I saw the OP had access to machines, but I didn't take that to mean she specifically wanted a machine-based program. Ignore my post if that's the case.

But I disagree that Starting Strength isn't an effective program when done on a deficit. Especially for overweight beginner lifters.

You can probably get pretty good benefits from following it - certainly I wouldn't have tried doing squats with a barbell if I hadn't read it. I think the "Starting" part of the name is a bit misleading - you really have to have some idea what you are doing in order to get the best out of it.

I would say if you want to do it it's a great program, but I think having a trainer show you the lifts would be very helpful, especially with the ones that you can really hurt yourself with like deadlifts (which remains the only lift that I *have* actually hurt myself doing). Plus power cleans are (I think) pretty advanced - I still don't feel happy doing them.

For a total beginner, machines give pretty good results with minimal instruction / supervision required. Free weights (barbells especially) require a bit more knowledge on how to get good and safe results.

After a couple of months on the machines, the OP may like to look at using a barbell for a bit of a change.

Seriously, as a beginner, anything you do (that doesn't result in injury) is all good.

Since you are just starting out, I would keep the workouts simple and do a full body workout in each session. You should include a push excercise, a pull exercise, a squat, a lunge and a core twist exercise within in every work out. You might do well starting out with as many body weight excercises as possible.

bodybuilding.com has programs for just about every ability level - machine and free weight. The videos can help you learn correct form as well. All free information. Good luck!!